Shelter Provides Refuge for South Orange County's Abandoned Animals

A 7-month-old black Chihuahua named Doe sits quietly in a crate at the Pet Rescue Center with a white cone around her neck. Doe is taken out of her crate, and she immediately wags her tail and looks up with big brown eyes that exude puppy enthusiasm.

However, upon closer inspection of an otherwise happy and healthy puppy, Doe is missing one of her legs. The injury is the  result of being  hit by a car. The accident took so much skin off of her leg that it couldn't heal properly. Doe's leg had to be amputated.

Doe might have been euthanized with an injury like this, as the cost for her surgery was $2,000. Her original family could not afford the fee and relinquished the dog to the hospital.  And the future adoption fee will be only $300. However, since the Pet Rescue Center is a low-kill center and is willing to operate at a high debt, it was able to save Doe and are able to save many animals like her on a day-to-day basis.

"She's a super happy dog who was walking the day after surgery," said Laguna Beach native and resident Dr. Matthew Wheaton, veterinarian at the Pet Rescue Center. Wheaton is co-founder of the Pet Rescue Center with his wife, Blythe Wheaton. "I'm sure we'll find a great home for her, and she would have already been three days dead at this point."

The Pet Rescue Center provides complete medical care center to its animals. Its animals are rarely fostered out so that the doctors can monitor them. Housed within the Alicia Pet Care Center in Mission Viejo, a state-of-the-art facility that had been an automotive repair shop, the waiting room features a fountain, a fish tank and a long couch.

The Rescue Center itself features crates with glass doors that are much larger than most people would picture at a shelter. Behind the rescue center is a grassy area for the animals. The dogs are walked several times a day and fed at breakfast at dinner with the same quality food that the veterinarian's pets get, according to manager of operations Paige Hochheiser.

The number of animals the Pet Rescue Center gets varies. According to Hochheiser, it received 18 animals one day recently, including 16 puppies.

"It just so happens that we had seven dogs go home in a seven-day period," Hochhesier said. "That gave us room to take these urgent cases. Normally, we wouldn't take this many dogs at once because we wouldn't have this kind of space. Normally we have around 30 cats and dogs. Right now we have about 40 dogs and a dozen cats. We're bursting at the seams."

 "We seek donations, and we try to do fundraising events," Hochheiser said, because the adoption fees of $150 for cats and $300 for dogs does not cover the most basic care the shelter offers. "... We are registered nonprofit, and we rely solely on generous donations and at this point generous care by the Wheatons."

"There's a lot of our heart in our organization and what we do," Dr. Wheaton said. "It definitely gets us through the day and makes us feel good about what we do."

The center is holding a drive called Toys for Tails. The wish list of items includes: a pet transport van, pet crates/cages, pet beds, pet blankets and towels, dog toys, dog leashes, dog harnesses, cat toys, cat litter, gift cards and cash.

To find out more about how to adopt an animal from the Pet Rescue Center or how to volunteer, visit petrescuecenter.org.